Dragon Age - v1.05 Patch

November 24th, 2011, 23:53

You may want to skip the latest patch for Dragon Age: Origins. The v1.05 patch barely addresses anything and from reports at the forums and GameBanshee it seems to cause more problems than it fixes. Here are the patch notes:

Dragon Age: Origins 1.05
General Fixes
DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT
Downloadable content will properly authenticate once installed.
PERFORMANCE
Fixed an issue where some users with DirectX10-era video cards were experiencing significant lag within menus and interfaces as well as sudden spikes in area load times.
Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition Fixes
INSTALLATION
The Ultimate Edition installer for the EA Download Manager (EADM) version of the game was placing the CD-Key in the wrong location in the Windows registry. EADM has been replaced with EA's Origin system and this error has been corrected in the new Origin installer. For those who purchased and installed the Ultimate Edition via EADM, the Patch 1.05 installer will copy that CD-Key into the correct Windows registry location.

Never expected another patch for DA:O. Bit odd to have an experience like this with an EA game Not needing this patch anymore since the game is not installed but still nice for the people who are still playing this.

Best RPG ever. Sorry Torment, I hate to actually say it, but it happened. It's too bad it's the last of its kind. =(

Patch 1.04 added a ton of shitty bugs and broke Quinns Fixpack, though, which led to him apparently abandoning the project. Patch 1.05 sounds like it doesn't fix anything at all. I want to replay this but I want someone to fix the fixpack so I can enjoy restored content and less bugs. >

Personally, I get the feeling as if Dragon Age 1 has already been fully abandoned by both Bioware & EA. They're only updating it because of this "Origin" thing.

I think a hint/clue that I might be right is that there hasn't been any patches in the past since the "Ultimate Edition" came out.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by darkling
Best RPG ever. Sorry Torment, I hate to actually say it, but it happened.

It's refreshing to read something like that out of yet another Skyrim thread.

—

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

As far as I'm concerned, it is the best Bioware game. To be fair, though, I've not played Jade Empire, Mass Effect 2 or MDK 2. Or Sonic Chronicles or Shattered Steel I guess. Maybe Sonic Chronicles is completely awesome! BG 1 and BG 2 honestly never did it for me. As much as I like NWN as a platform for some fantastic user content, the gameplay mechanics are wonky and the OC and the addons were far from inspired storytelling. Knights of the Old Republic was alright but never really hooked me and I never finished it. Probably my distaste for Star Wars kicking in.

I've been contemplating skipping Mass Effect, after failing to get into it about 30 times, and giving ME2 a go. That's what I did with The Witchers and was quite pleased with the second game after loathing the first. I hear ME2 doesn't rely on horrible space car driving mechanics that I simply cannot do. That might just do it for me.

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
While I wouldn't call DA:O the "best RPG ever" (in all honesty, I think it's impossible to give one RPG that title anyway), I think a strong case could be made that it was Bioware's best effort.

You mean Bioware's recent best effort. Their best game was released back in 2000.

Originally Posted by purpleblob
You mean Bioware's recent best effort. Their best game was released back in 2000.

For some people perhaps . Honestly, it's a really close call for me. At the end of he day, it's choosing between two games that I really enjoyed playing. I guess playing BG2 for the first time this year made some of the annoyances more noticeable (such as party formations that are completely useless in dungeons thanks to the incredibly cramped, narrow passageways and tiny rooms). Also, while I've finally become proficient with the Dn'D system (thanks to playing Icewind Dale and Temple of Elemental Evil a few years back), it's definitely not my favorite ruleset in the world for crpgs.

Then again, some of the side-quests in BG2 were longer and just as fleshed out as some of the main-quests in DA:O, which made for a really epic playthrough. Six-character parties are a godsend, and this is something I wish was in DA:O…it really feels like you have a small army with you on your adventure, which is great for customization purposes and allows for a wide range of different party setups.

So while it's a bit of a coin-toss for me, it's not something I think too hard about…They're both great games in my book, and they each do certain things better than the other.

No coin-toss for me . Dragon Age wasn't even close to either BG game in my book. Just too generic and repetitive. Even though I enjoyed it for the most part, I had to actually force myself to continue towards the end.

As far as the setting, I don't think you can really compare them, due to the fact that one was based on an existing IP while the other was (un)original.

The setting wasn't the biggest factor for me though. The repetitiveness of DA's environments and enemies is what annoyed me most, and even most fans of the game won't try to deny those points. DA would have actually been a better game if it was about 20% shorter. There just wasn't enough variety for a game that could stretch close to 100 hours.

Still, I think it's a very good game considering when it was released. It was the closest thing we had to an "old-school" party-based RPG in a long time, and will probably be the last of that type of game we see from Bioware.

Ah, a perfect sample of completely objective voters who were in no way affected by the warm pull of nostalgia . Again though, I only said that a case could be made that DA:O is better. Playing BG2 so many years after its release (and after playing Origins first), I can say that it has aged very well and is highly enjoyable - I only wish some of the improvements from DA:O were in there as well (such as more interesting melee and archery, a far less annoying magic system, better party path-finding, cross-class combat tactics, slower, more methodical pace to combat which makes it easier to manage, etc.) The same could be said of Dragon Age…there are elements of BG2 that I really wish were in that game (way more classes to choose from, multi/dual classing, six person party, owning your own keep, longer and far more involved side-quests, more possible party setups, etc.)

Originally Posted by JDR13
The setting wasn't the biggest factor for me though. The repetitiveness of DA's environments and enemies is what annoyed me most, and even most fans of the game won't try to deny those points. DA would have actually been a better game if it was about 20% shorter. There just wasn't enough variety for a game that could stretch close to 100 hours.

Hmm… well, the length of Dragon Age seemed just about right for me, and the one major area that most complain about as being too long - the Deep Roads - was really enjoyable for me, and made sense within the setting as to why it would be such a long journey to finish. Playing through BG2, most of the complaints of repetitive enemy encounters and overly long sections of "filler combat" could also apply to that came as well. Micro-managing the spell system becomes extremely tiresome after 40+ hours, and is a bit of a headache overall. I would say that BG2 had more diverse enemies and encounters overall, but it still suffers from the same issue of drawn-out combat that isn't completely necessary.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Still, I think it's a very good game considering when it was released. It was the closest thing we had to an "old-school" party-based RPG in a long time, and will probably be the last of that type of game we see from anybody.

Now that I can certainly agree with without question . I added in the "anybody" part, because I don't think we'll ever see a game of Baldur's Gate/Dragon Age's nature ever again.

My total play-time for DA:O, including Awakening and all the DLC except Darkspawn Chronicles was 72 hours. I liked the deep roads parts, myself. The lack of a third option in the dwarven questline was the only real thing in the game that I found infuriating, especially with the presence of wider variety in every other quest-line. It all made sense, I just wish there was something else to do there.

My experience with Baldur's Gate is the opposite of everyone else in the worlds, though. I upgraded my computer in anticipation for it. I pre-ordered the game (the last time I did that until this year). I was so excited! I was actually a pretty big Forgotten Realms fanboy at the time. I ran a number of FR campaigns, owned just about every FR D&D book published. I even read the bad novels. I had stitched together the maps from a dozen products on my bedroom wall to plan epic scale adventures for my high school/university pals. But Baldur's Gate failed to resonate with me on every level. I never got into the game, no matter how hard I tried. I've even tried again recently, after finishing DA2. I still can't do it. All the NPC's are horrible and the writing is gratingly flippant. The engine is really poor, it was hard to manage back then and I still find it to be a mess. I've never gotten further than the gnoll settlement… Despite all that, I spent 100+ hours, easily, struggling with the same engine in PS:Torment. That felt rewarding though. I never got that feeling from BG.

Of course, everyone else loves it. People also seem to love driving the Mako, though. I just can't figure people out.

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
Ah, a perfect sample of completely objective voters who were in no way affected by the warm pull of nostalgia .

So every time an older game is overwhelmingly favored over a newer game it's automatically nostalgia? I think we're both smarter than that.

Maybe Gothic isn't actually better than Arcania. It could be that nostalgia is simply twisting our perception.

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
Hmm… well, the length of Dragon Age seemed just about right for me, and the one major area that most complain about as being too long - the Deep Roads - was really enjoyable for me, and made sense within the setting as to why it would be such a long journey to finish. Playing through BG2, most of the complaints of repetitive enemy encounters and overly long sections of "filler combat" could also apply to that came as well. Micro-managing the spell system becomes extremely tiresome after 40+ hours, and is a bit of a headache overall. I would say that BG2 had more diverse enemies and encounters overall, but it still suffers from the same issue of drawn-out combat that isn't completely necessary.

I don't think they're even close in that aspect, but obviously some people have a higher tolerance of repetitiveness than I do.

You basically fought the same 4-5 enemies over and over again in DA, regardless of where you were in the world, with very few exceptions. Both games had filler combat, but the difference is that BG at least displayed a large variety of enemies, rather than just having you slay an endless supply of Darkspawn for the most part.

I'll admit that the BG series did have the advantage of being created from an IP that already had hundreds of monster types to choose from. If you look at it that way, then it's probably not really fair to compare them.